Social media has become one of the most important tools in the toolshed for most small business. Think of it - how did you discover your last favourite service or outlet? Did a friend mention it on Facebook? Did you see an ad pop up while watching a youtube video? Or perhaps you were simply googling and the business showed up near the top of your local search.

Hundreds of years ago, citizens would gather around the pickle barrel at a corner store and share stories about business and products and services. Word of mouth has always been the best form of marketing - and now, social media gives you a pickle barrel big enough to accommodate the entire world. And as more and more people gather around that particular barrel, fewer and fewer pay attention to the more traditional modes of marketing.

If your business is not using social media in some form, it will quickly fall out of daily conversation and into obscurity.

But using social media can seem overwhelming, there are so many options! “I need someone to manage it all,” you might think. You go online to see what that might cost and you see prices ranging from $850 - 2750 usd per month. This seems very high and unaffordable. However if you consider the money you have paid for print advertising and yellow pages listings, things might shift in perspective. Then again, it’s not necessary to ‘go big or go home’.

Goodwin Studios has put together a small social media package that will help you get started.

Get them to visit your website

Many businesses do a good job posting and sharing on social media, but the articles don’t link to their website. If you want people to see what your business offers, you need to somehow entice them to visit your website. The easiest way to do this is to write articles, blogs, or newsy bits using your website’s blog function. Then, copy the URL to the blog post and travel over to your favourite social media (Facebook is still a good one) and paste the link on your FB Business page. Now, when people see the article and click to read it, they are teleported directly onto your website.

Give them articles of interest

It’s not acceptable to copy and paste other articles into your blog. It’s ‘okay’ to write an introductory paragraph then link to another website but most readers find this annoying - having to click through to one site then click through to another in order to get the story. Your best action plan is to write, or have someone write, a nice little article unique to your business. These don’t have to be long important essays - most people online are happy to read something short and sweet. However, the articles do need to have reasonably interesting content and be well-written.

Don’t let them forget you

Over a period of a month, it’s good to post at least once a week. In fact, we think posting four unique articles over the month, and then sharing 2-3 industry-related articles as well, will get people’s attention.

Mix things up

Facebook has always been the go-to marketing resource for most small businesses. However, Facebook is always changing their algorithms. At one time people saw your posts if they liked your business page,. Then they needed to actually like the posts or comment on the posts. Then the thing was to create a Facebook Group as well as a page. The changes keep happening and so do the rumours. There is no real answer - I think Facebook changes it around without announcement because in truth, they want you to pay for Facebook Ads. That is the only guaranteed way to get the best exposure on that platform.

We find, however, that if you use Facebook the same way over a period of time, your efforts will pay off. And you can consider other forms of social media for extra exposure.

Right now, Instagram is rivaling Facebook as a go-to marketing tool. It’s unfortunate that Instagram is owned by Facebook but for now, we recommend Instagram as a good option. In order to use this platform, you’ll need photos. Instagram is all about photos. You can take photos at work, or take photos to and from work. People don’t share on Instagram, they simply click a heart, or not. Simple is beautiful.

Our package

4 original blog posts (up to 500 words) relevant to your company Each post will be shared on Facebook and Twitter Custom image for each post2 shared industry-relevant posts Each post will be shared on Facebook and Twitter4-8 posts on Instagram, tagged with relevant keywords

We will hire/manage writers for your blog posts, and they will be shared on social media and linked directly back to your company website to encourage traffic.

We recommend trying this out for 3 months. If you start today it would cover the holiday months, Nov 15 - Jan 15. At the end of that time, we can look at your website traffic and see if there’s been an improvement. Or you can analyze where your more recent clients have found you.

Goodwin Creative Ltd. is an established creative design studio which specializes in web development, care and maintenance as well as graphic design and desktop publishing. Doing business in Squamish, BC and Port Coquitlam, BC since 2002. Formerly known as Goodwin Studios.